It’s enough to make you think of the last days in a Berlin bunker in 1945. So, you’ve probably heard yesterday was the day we began the Donald Trump Shark Jump. When most of both conservative and progressive msm came out against DJT’s hounding of MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough (and dismissing the murdered girl’s family); and even Twitter finally buckled by fact-checking his ct tweets on mail-in voting, DJT responded with what? A fat middle finger, in the form of yet another Scarborough murder retweet...and then threatening the company (under some unknown executive authority).
Think about that. You are in the highest public office in the land of the most powerful country on the globe, and your idea of demonstrating leadership during a global pandemic is to be a child and continue doing what even your best friends are begging you to stop doing, for their—and your sake. And this at the same time DJT looks, to Joe Biden, and something like 75% of all Americans in round numbers according to most polls, “like a fool” to refuse to put on a mask?
So, to recap, Trump is desperate to get reelected in November, but appears to be pathologically unable to do anything that implies that a previous action may have been unwise, in retrospect. And at the same time, demonstrates the most toxic and selfish form of ‘manhood’ by refusing to wear a mask in public. His poll numbers are tanking but he so far refuses to bend to public opinion. Either to stop making demonstrably false accusations, or to encourage an activity that would have the double benefit of increasing the speed of of his Number One Top Priority: reopening the economy.
If this continues, we will be witnessing the disintegration of the executive branch of American government. Throw Mike Pompeo in the mix and the entire administration will have officially jumped the shark. Standing outside any semblance of mainstream opinion on matters that have already cost the country a staggering 100,000 deaths in the past 3 months, can only be attractive to the most hardcore Trumpists. Heck, at this point, considering the damage they’re doing, they might as well be Russian nationals.
Where does that leave things? Realistically, we can assume Moscow Mitch and Mike (The Undertaker) Pence are becoming aware that the fate of the nation over the next 7 months (5 months to Election Day, and 2 months to Inauguration Day) may depend on decisions they make between now and then. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what a vulnerable position the US government leadership finds itself in, with an executive branch effectively cut off from reality. Like a certain figure moving paper armies on a map in a Berlin bunker. The only thing missing (thankfully) are bombs falling from the sky, but the damage to our country and its institutions is very, very, real.